Ruins
by triformis
Summary: This is the story of a sister in need of rescue. Implied Shenko.


**A/N: This is my view of the possible rescue at the end of the 'perfect' ME3 destruction choice and, although I love Kaidan to bits, I don't see how he could be the one to rescue Shep from the destruction since the Normandy had bailed and even with FTL only slightly damaged, they would still take at least several days to several months to return from the nearest cluster. The below is not edited or beta'd. Apologies for the mistakes. I don't own Mass Effect series, BioWare does.**

Wrex barrelled through the ruins with near crazed urgency, he could smell Shepard _everywhere_ , her blood drying and dark smeared on the way, bodies littering the platform, some piled up and some crushed under rubble, he might have stopped to check like the humans were, but he knew she wasn't here, he would have smelled her. How much blood did humans have again, her body was very small compared to his and if he remembered correctly humans didn't regenerate health like krogans, was there anything left at all, spotting another dried trail at what looked like an exit he charged towards it, biotics flaring and causing the gash in his abdomen to open and bleed.

Down to one liver he absently thought. A human female shouted behind him, probably the doctor, but be ignored her moving farther away, only when his blood dripped over a trace of hers altering the smell he stopped and clamped down on his wound to create a small barrier sealing the exit. Another human female sided up to him, looking at his abdomen, she didn't seem to have any expression, features set like stone, blue eyes cold. He would have thought her a synthetic, if he didn't know that all those metal and scrap bastards were dead. "You'll be fine" she dismissed his organ loss and he nearly punched the bitch, but then her hand rose to brush back her fringe and he saw it tremble, she closed her eyes and rubbed them with it and then her face was back to stone.

"Have you lost Shepard?" he nearly sneered at her voice breaking, it sounded like desperation and he knew that she was steadily losing her sanity too. There were so many bodies around, blood pooled around the piles of flesh and decay the smell nearly unbearable as it assaulted his heightened senses cloying in his throat, and he let out a grunt. "I know how Shepard's blood smells, how many times do you think we bled together, we are not losing my kin" then he turned to the right with Miranda right on his tail "this way" and he was charging the next second, the human right next to him. Good, he wasn't going to leave her waiting for anything in the universe. 'Hold on sister, I am coming, hold on', his two hearts squeezed tightly and he tasted blood in his mouth but pushed on, head addled because of the biotics overuse, his redundant nervous system threatening to take over his current failing one.

He pushed through the numbness, his consciousness teetering on a thread, his blood boiling and brain screaming, he had to save her. She had saved him, saved them all, his clan with her strength, saved his people, she couldn't die, that's why he had the ex-Cerberus human with him, she had brought her back once, and if needed she was going to do it again, he'd make damn sure of it. Shepard was too important, to him, to her friends, to the black haired softie with crazy strong biotics and geeky tech brain…

Now that he thought about it, she was part techie too, but far more dangerous, her technology was employed to give her an advantage in battle and most of her opponents never saw the death she dealt coming, invisible until the bullet hit or when she incinerated opponents stupid enough to try and charge her. The fights she found were always challenging and fun, especially when racing around the Universe after a mad turian. After joining her, for the first time in his life especially during battle, when he chanced a look behind he noticed that she had his six covered.

She squeezed out every ounce of advantage possible using her own skills and those of her team like bloody art and walked off small things like death, making it seem normal or that she really was a bloody krogan.

Pride coloured his facial features and he grit his fangs to keep focused then he pushed harder, faster, more desperate, towards the edge of the path, there was a collapsed broken machine and her smell was Everywhere!

"Shepard!" was the bellow he could no longer contain.

Miranda Lawson was the ice-cold space (bitch) diva, designed to be superior, perfect… what a pile of horseshit. Perfect was a word overused by more than one piece of scum in the Universe, they thought they knew what that meant, nobody knew, she certainly didn't. She'd landed on Earth after the Crucible was activated and had the immense satisfaction to see those bug-like bastards fall like flies around the horizon, and damned if that was not a welcome sight. But then her eyes were glued on the remains of the Citadel and the beam that seemed to lose its energy and her heart exploded. She held a hand to her now choked throat and one to her chest feeling the erratic pulse. Not exploded then. She focused on breathing but only managed a pained hiccup as her body trembled, she hadn't felt this desperation since watching her sister in the hands of her madman of a father and she knew that the woman she considered a best friend and a second sister was up there, alone.

' _Get your wits together Lawson and don't start sobbing like a baby, you have a Commander to save.'_ Taking a deep long breath she retrieved her stone mask from the dusty Cerberus corners of her mind where she had thrown it when boarding the Normandy and focused on her environment, quite in the nick of time as an 800 pound krogan charged towards her. The normal reaction would have been to ready her own biotics or even attack first, but one didn't attack Shepard's friends and lived to tell the tale. Not only because Shepard would kill them, one needn't doubt the laws of nature, but more so because her friends were also really good at killing and Urdnot Wrex the krogan this case, was a master.

Naturally Miranda also, as one of her friends and one murder short of cold blooded, was a master at dealing death. At Shepard's party she met all her former teammates, the ones who had met and followed her from her first command and although decidedly different they all had bonded through their friendship with the Commander and managed to even hold conversations without beating the shit out of any one other.

Wrex looked at her noting her attention and spoke with a tone that left nothing to uncertainty "I am going to find my kin and you're going to fix her" it wasn't a question, it was a plan of action and Miranda who always recognised a good plan, could work with this one.

"We will need resources" she replied and bit her lip thoughtfully, not money, that wasn't a problem, after her father's death she was nearly the wealthiest human in the Galaxy but actual resources, the cutting-edge technology she had access to in Cerberus. Still she had the memory of the procedures used during Lazarus and the rest they could find, regardless of the cost. They were all were scattered, the entire team, the Universe even, all of them desperate to find grounding, they wouldn't be able to until they had their centre back, the incredible force attracting everything and everyone to her.

The krogan looked at her again, she could feel his sight studying her physiognomy then with a grunt he made for the path to the beam. "Let's go" was all he said before she saw biotics flare around his body and she prepared her own as they both charged ahead, not acknowledging the bodies around them, trying to ignore how everything seemed bathed in blood, she pushed everything behind her eyelids. Later, there will be time later, now they had to move, they had a sister to save.

They hit the beam at the same time and she had the presence of mind to not break out of his hold when he grabbed her arm, maybe he knew something she didn't and she couldn't risk being separated. Their rough landing scared the medics they met half to death, she recognised the citadel head physician, the one that saved the Major and took a step towards her, Wrex already ahead. He told the doctor what they were looking for and weren't surprised to learn she was trying to do the same, although painfully slow as they had to stop and check for survivors and aid the ones they could.

One look at the male and she read him clear as day, he turned and prepared to charge, the doctor shouting for him to stop and let her attend the cut on his side Miranda hadn't noticed but he ignored everything around him as he seemed to pick up Shepard, his head tilted to the side as he snared and grit his fangs and Miranda made chase after him only to stop 50 meters ahead to stare at his wound when he sealed it with biotics, it would only last until he was all out of strength then it was anyone's guess at the consequences. She, herself was no different as she ran a hand through her fringe discretely checking the biotic seal on her right temple at the hairline, still tight but she was past exhausted, the only thing holding her up and moving being adrenaline-laced fear.

He looked away from her, fangs gritted and she couldn't control her voice when she asked if he had lost track of the scent to which he replied in such a dismissively proud way that was only knogan. He turned again, leading the way and mumbling under his breath, she thought she heard him utter "sister" and smiled, nobody else saw it but she knew it was there on her own lips, what a pair the two of them made, krogan and human, both desperate, biotic, deadly and both looking for family.

They kept charging for what felt like eternity before they reached an opening and what she saw made her brain short-circuit, mechanical parts from what was most likely the Catalyst littered a cavern, full of rubble, then her blood ran cold and her body went numb as she heard the shout from Wrex and nearly collapsed on the spot but was held up by a vice grip. She didn't fight it as he dragged her with him his biotics flaring with each step. She felt her own head grow heavier by the minute and her own biotics flared in near sink to his, was he using them like a homing device, she couldn't tell.

"I smell her everywhere", his voice was somehow changed and it made her blood feel like ice in her veins, was that desperation? "Every piece of gravel has her scent but I know, I know!" he turned to her and looked her square in the eyes, his red ones dead serious "I know she's breathing, she's still alive" then only noticing his grip on her arm he jerked away, turning towards the chaos in front of them and taking a step towards the centre.

The pain in his skull was unlike anything he ever felt and nothing like the other times he had lost an organ and it showed in his unconscious act. Although many of his actions were instinctual he never moved without purpose, love of a fighting didn't mean being stupid, and he never did anything out of control but he hadn't even realised when he grabbed the human. He felt his biotics fluctuate in strength and intensity and he realized he was at breaking point, at any moment he could become useless, a drooling pile of weakness writhing in this rubble that smelled like Shepard, while he switched nervous systems.

He took another step forward trying to gain more control, like Alenko did when fighting banshees. Wrex was proud of his strength and determination, still fighting although their shrieks hurt him so violently he screamed when they appeared, he still fought, still being able to focus. Calm… that had never been something that came natural to him, but tried to learn and use when dealing with politics on Tuchanka or the Citadel, now he needed that calm, he had to focus, to forget about himself and only focus on her smell, she couldn't have been everywhere because although there was blood, it was not so spread out as when somebody exploded, he knew that sight.

He took a breath and tried to think of their chats and of the many battles they fought together but what truly brought him calm was the remembrance of their bond as kin on Tuchanka, a Reaper dead killed by the thresher maw and the krogan free of the genophage.

That's when he heard it, irregular and faint, he thought his fading reason was making it up until he heard it again. A small sound. A breath.

Shepard.


End file.
